URBANA, Ill. — A sub-cellular world has been opened up for scientists to study E. coli and other tissues in new ways, thanks to a microscopy method that stealthily provides three-dimensional, high-quality images of the internal structure of cells without disturbing the specimen. By combining a novel algorithm with a recently-developed add-on technique for commercial microscopes, researchers at the University of Illinois have created a fast, non-invasive 3D method for visualizing, quantifying, and studying cells without the use of fluorescence or contrast agents. In ...

Many lung cancers are driven by mutations in the epidermal growth-factor receptor (EGFR), and so it makes sense that many successful modern treatments block EGFR activity. Unfortunately, cancers inevitably evolve around EGFR inhibition, and patients with lung cancers eventually relapse. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Cancer Research details a signaling pathway, known as 'the canonical Wnt pathway', that lung cancer cells use to escape from EGFR-targeted therapy – and suggests that by disrupting this pathway, we could lengthen ...

New research has shed light on the high risk of fractures, falls, and osteoporosis among epilepsy patients using antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) with most patients unaware of the risks associated with taking the drugs. The study led by the University of Melbourne and published in the prestigious Neurology journal, found that people taking antiepileptic drugs are up to four times more likely to suffer spine, collarbone and ankle fractures and are more likely to have been diagnosed with osteoporosis. The study also revealed that these patients are more than four times as likely ...

June 29, 2012, Cambridge, Mass., and Shenzhen, China – BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, announced today that a group of scientists and researchers successfully demonstrated genomic data transfer at a sustained rate of almost 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) over a new link connecting US and China research and education networks. This data rate is equivalent to moving more than 100 million megabytes -- over 5,400 full Blu-ray discs -- in a single day. The data transfer demonstration was part of a June 22nd event in Beijing celebrating a new 10 Gigabit US ...

LIVERMORE, Calif.—A team of nanomaterials researchers at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new technique for radiation detection that could make radiation detection in cargo and baggage more effective and less costly for homeland security inspectors. Known as spectral shape discrimination (SSD), the method takes advantage of a new class of nanoporous materials known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Researchers discovered that adding a doping agent to an MOF leads to the emission of red and blue light when the MOF interacts with high-energy particles emanated ...

Lizards, just like cats, have a knack for turning right side up and landing on their feet when they fall. But how do they do it? Unlike cats, which twist and bend their torsos to turn upright, lizards swing their large tails one way to rotate their body the other, according to a recent study that will be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on 29th June in Salzburg, Austria. A lizard-inspired robot, called 'RightingBot', replicates the feat. This work, carried out by Ardian Jusufi, Robert Full and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, ...

A detailed technical introduction to the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free-electron Laser (SACLA) appeared online in Nature Photonics. The attention on the world's second XFEL facility comes in response to its record-breaking size and performance: SACLA boasts the shortest wavelength in the world (0.63 Angstroms), an extremely broad wavelength range (0.63 - 3 Angstroms) and a very high peak output of 10 GW. SACLA achieves this performance despite having an overall length of only 700 meters, a fraction of the 2 - 4 km taken up by XFEL facilities in the United States and Europe. The ...

Septic shock is the most severe outcome associated with pathogen infection in the bloodstream. It is a life-threatening condition invariably leading to multiple organ dysfunctions. Currently, septic shock is one of the most frequent causes of death in intensive care units worldwide. However, it is already known that sepsis-induced multiple organ dysfunction is not a direct effect of the pathogen invasion itself but rather an overreaction of the host immune system against the infection. Many strategies aiming at holding back the extreme response of the immune system have ...

Urban rivers throughout England and Wales have improved dramatically in water quality and wildlife over the last 20 years. That's the conclusion of one the largest studies of national trends in river health ever undertaken. After decades of pollution, typically from poorly treated sewage and industrial waste, rivers in or near Britain's major urban areas are regaining insects such as mayflies and stoneflies that are typical of fast-flowing, oxygen-rich waters. The range of invertebrates found has also increased, on average, by around 20%. Researchers from Cardiff ...

A new way of testing the safety of natural and synthetic chemicals has been developed by scientists with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Their research, published today in the journal Ecotoxicology, could reduce the number of fish needed to test the toxicity of a range of chemicals including pharmaceuticals and environmental pollutants. The researchers, led by Professor Awadhesh Jha of Plymouth University, have managed to coax cells from the liver of a rainbow trout to form a ball-shaped structure called a spheroid in a ...

A reindeer engraved on the wall of a cave in South Wales has been found to date from at least 14,505 years ago – making it the oldest known rock art in the British Isles. The engraving was discovered in September 2010 by Dr George Nash from the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology while he was exploring the rear section of Cathole Cave, a limestone cave on the eastern side of an inland valley on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Found to the rear of the cave on a small vertical limestone niche, the engraved cervid – probably a stylised ...

Archaeological research carried out at the Neolithic site of La Draga, near the lake of Banyoles, has yielded the discovery of an item which is unique in the western Mediterranean and Europe. The item is a bow which appeared in a context dating from the period between 5400-5200 BCE, corresponding to the earliest period of settlement. It is a unique item given that it is the first bow to be found in tact at the site. According to its date, it can be considered chronologically the most ancient bow of the Neolithic period found in Europe. The study will permit the analysis ...

London (June 29 2012) – Merely showing up to work in an environment where bullying goes on is enough to make many of us think about quitting, a new study suggests. Canadian researchers writing in the journal Human Relations published by SAGE, have found that nurses not bullied directly, but who worked in an environment where workplace bullying occurred, felt a stronger urge to quit than those actually being bullied. These findings on 'ambient' bullying have significant implications for organizations, as well as contributing a new statistical approach to the field. To ...

New Haven, Conn.—Women in rural Bangladesh prefer inexpensive, traditional stoves for cooking over modern ones despite significant health risks, according to a Yale study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A large majority of respondents—94 percent—believed that indoor smoke from the traditional stoves is harmful, but less so than polluted water (76 percent) and spoiled food (66 percent). Still, Bangladeshi women opted for traditional cookstove technology so they could afford basic needs. "Nontraditional cookstoves might be more successful if they ...

"When faced with the possibility of an earthquake, up until now the physical risk of the city has only ever been evaluated. This, in other words, means damage to buildings and infrastructures taking into consideration the amount of people inside," as explained to SINC by Liliana Carreño, researcher at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Her team proposes a new method of carrying out an overall assessment of the seismic risk of an urban area, taking into account the social strengths and weakness and the city's governance. The system created by Carreño and her ...

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) will be adding a leap second at 00:59 BST on 1st July to its atomic clocks, to ensure UK time remains synchronised with international time. The insertion of the leap second is required as the Earth does not rotate at a constant speed, whereas atomic clocks, several of which are located at NPL's site in Teddington, are much better at keeping time. Due to the unpredictable nature of the Earth's movement, leap seconds are occasionally required to bring atomic time back into alignment with astronomical time. This procedure ...

Injections of corticoid preparations can have severe side effects. In this issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Christian Holland and coauthors contribute to physicians' awareness of problems of this type with a report on the relevant findings of medicolegal expert committees in Germany (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109[24]: 425-30. One patient, for example, received multiple intramuscular injections of dexamethasone and diclofenac for the treatment of back pain. Six weeks after the last injection, 500 g of necrotic tissue had to be surgically removed from the site ...

Accelerated whole breast irradiation after lumpectomy is an effective treatment for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a very common early stage and noninvasive form of breast cancer, meaning many more breast cancer patients could see their treatment times reduced by half, according to a study in the June issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The widespread use of mammography beginning in the early 1980s has led to a dramatic increase in the number ...

As scientists have added to a growing list of types of RNA molecules with roles that go beyond conveying the genetic code, they have found the short strands known as Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) particularly perplexing. New work from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists suggests those abundant molecules may be part of the cell's search engine, capable of querying the entire history of a cell's genetic past. Organisms contain thousands of piRNA molecules, strands of 26 to 31 nucleotides encoded all over the genome. In two studies published online June 25, ...

University Park, Pa. -- A device about the size of a dime can manipulate living materials such as blood cells and entire small organisms, using sound waves, according to a team of bioengineers and biochemists from Penn State. The device, called acoustic tweezers, is the first technology capable of touchlessly trapping and manipulating Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a one millimeter long roundworm that is an important model system for studying diseases and development in humans. Acoustic tweezers are also capable of precisely manipulating cellular-scale objects that ...

WASHINGTON — Innovation in computing will be essential to finding real-world solutions to sustainability challenges in such areas as electricity production and delivery, global food production, and climate change. The immense scale, numerous interconnected effects of actions over time, and diverse scope of these challenges require the ability to collect, structure, and analyze vast amounts of data. A new report from the National Research Council says that advances in computing -- such as ones that allow us to make trade-offs, understand complex systems and their connections, ...

A simple and cost effective imaging device for breast tumor detection based on a flexible and wearable antenna system has been developed by researchers at the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. The team based in the Integrated Nanosystems Development Institute (INDI) describes details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology and point out that their system holds the promise of much earlier detection than mammography. INDI's Kody Varahramyan and colleagues, Sudhir Shrestha, Mangilal Agarwal, Azadeh ...

A University of Texas at Austin research team successfully demonstrated for the first time that the GPS signals of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, can be commandeered by an outside source — a discovery that could factor heavily into the implementation of a new federal mandate to allow thousands of civilian drones into the U.S. airspace by 2015. Cockrell School of Engineering Assistant Professor Todd Humphreys and his students were invited by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to attempt the demonstration in White Sands, New Mexico in late June. Using ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that honey bees may teach us about basic connections between taste perception and metabolic disorders in humans. By experimenting with honey bee genetics, researchers have identified connections between sugar sensitivity, diabetic physiology and carbohydrate metabolism. Bees and humans may partially share these connections. In a study published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics (Public Library of Science), Gro Amdam, an associate professor, and Ying Wang, a research scientist, in the School ...

For bacteria, snipping apart DNA that bears certain signature sequences is a defense mechanism. For scientists working in the lab, the same strategy can be a powerful research tool. With a newly discovered component of an adaptive bacterial immune system, scientists have identified a targeted method of slicing DNA that they say can be easily customized for a variety of applications in the lab. Tools that snip apart DNA strands in defined locations are essential for editing genomes in the laboratory to study or alter gene function. To target the specific site in the genome ...